Agenda and minutes

(1) The Minutes of the meeting held on 19 April 2010 were agreed and signed as a true record.

(2) Mrs Hohler referred to minute paragraph 6 and said that a slight delay had occurred in responding to the issues on child safeguarding raised by the Cabinet Scrutiny Committee at its meeting on 9 April because of the need to ensure the response  was as full and complete as possible. The response was now complete and a copy would be sent to all members of the Council. 

- Report by Mr John Simmonds, Cabinet Member for Finance; and Lynda McMullan, Director of Finance )

(1)       Mr Simmonds said that the main point to note from this report was the gross underlying revenue under spend (excluding schools and asylum) was now standing at £7.6m but this was expected to increase by year end to some £7.86m (excluding schools and asylum) Mr Simmonds highlighted some of the areas of potential pressure in the Directorate budgets which would need to be closely monitored as the year progressed. With regard to the Capital Budget, Mr Simmonds said there had been some re-phasing but that was due to a number of reasons such as delays through the planning process.

(2) The audited accounts would be submitted to the June meeting of Cabinet together with recommendations on under spends

(3)       Resolved :  

(a)       that the forecast revenue and capital budget monitoring position for 2009-10 together with changes to the capital programme be noted; and

            (b)        that  £6.109m of re phasing on the capital programme be moved from 2009-10 capital cash limits to future years.

- Report by Mr Nick Chard Cabinet Member for Environment, Highways and Waste, Mr Mike Austerberry, Executive Director for Environment, Highways and Waste and Mr John Burr, Director, Kent Highway Services) (The Chairman declared consideration of this report to be urgent on the grounds that it contained for members consideration the most up to date information regarding the ongoing operation to repair potholes and to carry out larger patching maintenance work on the non-principle road network throughout each district)

(1)          Mr Burr gave a comprehensive briefing on the situation across the county since the contracts to seven companies to undertake this work on a district by district basis had been let on 13 April 2010.  Each contract was subject to a weekly review  and the work was on track to be completed by the end of July or early August.  Mr Chard said that this work had been prioritised to ensure the worse roads had been dealt with first. A key challenge now was for all to understand that working in such a systematic way did mean that it may appear to be taking longer than some would want to repair their road. However with 5 gangs operating in most districts the repair rate was moving forward with work to date having been undertaken to the value of some £630,000. At the current rate of spend the £2m set aside by the Council would run out by the end of June so the report recommended to allocation of additional money to ensure the repair programme could be completed.  There would be a further update to the July meeting of Cabinet.

(3)       Resolved that:

(a)  the report be noted and the approach of prioritisation and planned working be supported;

(b) an additional allocation of £1m be allocated to the project at this stage, to be funded from the remainder of the extra government funding (0.44m), and £0.56m from KCC funds ( to be taken from the additional £1m plus originally put against repairs to  winter damaged roads)

(c) A further report be submitted to Cabinet at its meeting in July 2010